"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

"Esteban Beltrán, provides data on arrests, deaths and wounded in protests in recent weeks in Venezuela."
"Nuria García talks about field research and emphasizes that there are victims who fear speaking in Venezuela."
From Amnesty Spain: "We're concerned, by among other things, threat in residential neighborhoods, using rubber bullets and the abuse of detainees.
From Amnesty Spain: We have received dozens of complaints from people who have been ill-treated in detention.

"The BolivarianPolicetook advantage ofthe speeches by the politicians, surroundingthe demonstrationstealthily. At the end, they did not hesitateonesecondto launchthe famous 'good gas'. "Strong repression", complaied theMetropolitanMayorAntonioLedezma,one ofthe closestalliesof Machado."They aredesperatetosee that they can not intimidate thebrave peoplein the streets andrepresseda peaceful demonstration," he added. Machado,accompanied byseveral oppositionMPs andstill sufferingthe effects ofgas boardeda groupof motorcycles andsped offtowardsthe Assembly.On the stagesmallbattlegroups of peoplerecovered from the effects of the gas.Studentstook to the streets toanotherarea of ​​the city, ready to protest theumpteenth police crackdownas violentas ever."

María Corina Machado was removed from office for having addressed the Organization of American States on the human rights crisis in Venezuela. Due to maneuvers of the Venezuelan government she was blocked from speaking and the government of Panama credentialed her to speak. The Chavista's used this as the basis to remove her from office in a manner that is unconstitutional and that was upheld by the Chavista packed Supreme Court. Venezuelans are being shot in the head, killed by snipers, for participating in nonviolent protests. It appears that these killings are being carried out by government agents. Others have been tortured. Their is reason to this brutality and it did not appear out of the blue.

Some of the victims of Maduro's repression since February 12, 2014

However, what is being witnessed in Venezuela today did not begin with the Maduro regime but started over 15 years ago on February 2, 1999 with the start of the presidency of the late Hugo Chavez. Human Rights Watch in 2004 released a report: Rigging the Rule of Law that was subtitled Judicial Independence Under Siege in Venezuela and warned of the government simultaneously packing the Supreme Court with pro-Chavez judges while at the same time purging those critical of the government. On the tenth anniversary of Chavez's 1998 electoral victory Human Rights Watch took a look back over the first decade in power and had this to say about the judiciary:

In 2004, displeased with a
series of controversial judicial rulings, the president and his supporters in
the National Assembly launched a political takeover of the Supreme Court. They
enacted a new law expanding the court from 20 to 32 members. Since the law
allowed the legislature to select new members by simple majority vote, this
meant the governing coalition was able to use its then slim majority in the National
Assembly to obtain an overwhelming majority of seats on the court. (At the time
the court was believed to be evenly divided between Chávez allies and critics.)
The law also gave the National Assembly the power to remove justices from the
bench with a simple majority vote rather than the two-thirds majority required
by the 1999 Constitution. The law, in short, made it possible for the governing
coalition to both pack and purge the country's highest court. ... Within weeks of the law's enactment, the three Supreme Court
justices responsible for the rulings that had most angered the Chávez camp were
gone from the bench. In December 2004 the governing
coalition in the National Assembly filled their vacancies, as well as the 12
new seats, with political allies. Over the next few years, this packed
Supreme Court fired hundreds of lower court judges and appointed hundreds more
to permanent judgeships.

The political takeover of the Supreme Court effectively
neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government. The packed
court has largely abdicated its role as a check on arbitrary state action. When
the Chávez government has pursued measures that undermine human rights
protections, the court's response has typically been one of passivity and
acquiescence. It has failed, in particular, to counter assaults on the
separation of powers, such as the 2004 court-packing law and, more recently, a
2007 constitutional reform package. It has also failed to safeguard fundamental
rights in prominent cases involving the media and organized labor.

In recent years, justices on the packed Supreme Court have
openly rejected the notion of the judiciary as an independent branch of
government. Instead of serving as a check on arbitrary state action, they have
espoused the view that the role of the country’s courts is to support the
political agenda of President Chávez.
For example, at the public ceremony initiating judicial
activities for 2011, the keynote speaker, Justice Fernando Torre Alba, declared
that the judiciary has the duty to participate in the effective implementation
of the government’s public policy to develop “a deliberate and
planned action to carry out a Bolivarian and democratic socialism” and
that the courts “must severely…sanction behaviors or correct
judicial cases that undermine the construction of [this] Socialism.”[18]
Later that year, Supreme
Court President Luisa Estella Morales declared publicly that President
Chávez’s “direction, inspiration, and conception of the
Republic is what constitutionally inspires…our activities.”
Addressing the president—whom she referred to as “our
leader”—she said: “Here are all your institutions, and we are
firmly moving forward with the responsibilities that you have given us, which
we will never betray, not now, not ever.”[19]
More recently, in May 2012, while addressing newly appointed
judges at their swearing-in ceremony, the Supreme Court president exhorted them
to understand their role as adjudicators in terms of “our revolutionary
project and of the change that is taking place in Venezuela today.”[20]

The remaining question of what would happen to a judge that maintained the view that the judiciary was independent and should make decisions based on the law and not on the arbitrary decisions of the executive was demonstrated in the case of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni:

Judge Afiuni was detained on December 10, 2009, the day she authorized
the conditional liberty of Eligio Cedeño, a banker accused of
corruption, on the basis that he had been in pretrial detention for
almost 3 years, despite the 2-year limit prescribed by Venezuelan law.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions had declared Cedeño’s
detention “arbitrary.” The authorities accused Afiuni of corruption,
abuse of authority, and “favoring evasion of justice.” On December 11,
President Hugo Chávez said Afiuni was a “bandit” and should be sentenced
to 30 years in prison. Cedeño fled Venezuela and requested political
asylum in United States a few days later.

In September of 2013, The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement which outlined the rest of her plight:

A few days later, [Chávez] said she was “correctly jailed” and reiterated
that she should be given a maximum sentence, adding that he “would give
her 35 years.”In January 2010, prosecutors charged Judge Afiuni with
corruption, abuse of authority, and “favoring evasion of justice.”
Prosecutors provided no credible evidence to substantiate the charges.
Judge Afiuni was held in prison for over a year, before being
transferred to house arrest.During her detention, Judge Afiuni was raped
and suffered physical and psychological violence, including death
threats from other inmates.In June 2013, Judge Afiuni was released on
bail, while her trial, which began in 2012, continues. We recall that the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the
Judiciary prohibit inappropriate or unwarranted interferences with the
judicial function, including through reprisals such as those perpetrated
against Judge Afiuni.

Where the judiciary is subordinated and controlled by the executive branch one of the main pillars of a democracy: the rule of law has been removed. In 2014 the end result of the weakening of Venezuela's democratic institutions has reached the point that it is at a tipping point into a totalitarian dictatorship. Freedom of the press has been curtailed and government institutions that should be independent are all centralized in the executive. The democratic resistance has only one outlet to demonstrate its opposition in Venezuela and that is to take to the streets demanding that its rights are respected. The response of the Maduro regime with their Cuban advisors is to try to terrorize nonviolent protesters with violence, killings and torture. Imprisoning nonviolent opposition leaders such as Leopoldo Lopez has failed to shutdown the nonviolent demonstrations. From behind bars Leopoldo has been able to call thousands to the street in defiant and nonviolent protest.

Today's response by María Corina Machado and thousands of her supporters to nonviolently stare down the regime's repressive forces maintaining their nonviolent discipline following a gas and rubber bullet attack by the regime to prevent a march to the National Assembly demonstrates a movement that poses an existential threat to a totalitarian regime: nonviolent resistance backed up with moral authority has been shown to be part of the equation of ridding a country of a totalitarian regime. Corina Machado's moral stand rings out over twitter:

"They will not silence us. Now more then ever, I am a member of the National Assembly and assume my
responsibility to be Venezuelan's voice in and out of the National Assembly."